LEWISTON – Cooking has become big-time entertainment, and the annual Taste of Home Cooking School is solid evidence of that popularity.
About 850 men, women and children filled Lewiston Middle School auditorium Wednesday evening for the ninth annual show, which was billed as “On the Road with the Taste of Home Cooking School.”
Kate Gabriele, home economist for the Greendale, Wis., Taste of Home cookbook and magazine publishers, hosted the two-hour, live cooking demonstration.
The production was packed with 11 made-on-stage recipes, dozens of door prizes, quizzes, hints and lots of back-and-forth banter with a very happy crowd.
Gabriele’s demonstrations included a rustic apple cranberry tart, a peppered salmon dish, sausage mushroom quiche, toffee with peanuts, and other recipes.
Lisa Walker of Auburn was in a front-row seat, and she arrived at 3:45 p.m. to get an up-close view of the 6:30 p.m. show.
“I’ve been to all nine of the Taste of Home cooking shows,” she said. “I know you have to get here early.”
Walker said she was a door prize winner at the second show she attended, and she likes to try the recipes done on stage as well in the magazine.
Another member of the audience attended the show for the first time.
Brook Caron of Poland was celebrating his 10th birthday and when his mother, Sherry Priola, asked a few days ago what Brook would like for his birthday, he said he wanted to go to the cooking show.
The entire audience joined in singing “Happy Birthday” to him.
Brook said he likes to watch TV cooking shows.
His mother, who noted that Brook is the second of five youngsters in the family, said they kid him a lot.
“We call him Rachel Ray’s boyfriend,” she said. Ray hosts several Food Network shows.
“I like to cook mac and cheese, eggs, spaghetti and chili,” Brook said.
Jody Jalbert, Sun Journal advertising manager and show coordinator, guessed that there probably were only one or two men at the first cooking show nine years ago.
This year, there were dozens of men in the audience, and several of them were prize winners.
“We start planning for each year’s show in December, and people are asking about it by February,” Jalbert said. Many attendees come every year.
Jalbert said about 20 Sun Journal employees and members of their families served as volunteers for the event. They acted as ushers and on-stage assistants for Kate Gabriele.
The show features live preparation of all the recipes by Gabriele, and the audience can follow every move by overhead camera shots fed to large-screen television monitors on each side of the stage.
As each dish is put together, it’s popped into an oven or refrigerator. The finished foods are given away to audience members at the end of the show.
The Lewiston Middle School auditorium stage was decked out in pumpkin and hay bale decorations, with lots of filled grocery bags and large mum plants. The groceries and plants were among the many prizes.
Proceeds from the Taste of Home show go to the Salvation Army. Maj. Richard Lyle, who heads the Salvation Army in Lewiston, told the audience his organization “depends on community involvement and it’s great that doing something like this can help a lot of people.”
The Sun Journal was the media sponsor of the show.
Agren Appliance supplied the stoves, refrigerator and other appliances used for the demonstrations, and Hammond Lumber did the kitchen cabinets for the stage.
Hannaford supplied all the ingredients for the recipes, and Blais Flowers and Garden Center decorated the stage. Furniture Wholesalers/Candle Factory also was a sponsor.
There were several vendor booths, including Curves, the Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, Mary Kay, Northlight Portraits, Great Falls Regional Credit Union and others.
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